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After a year of NC with my uBDP twin sister, we reconnected a year ago snd unbelievably, we have gotten on well for nearly a full year. There have been times I have caught her wanting to freak out on me, but called her on it and somehow, it worked.

Well, the neediness started a couple of weeks ago, and I sensed this was probably going to happen. Another episode. I mean, I don’t even feel like the details are important anymore. The sh*t is always the same.

My sister lives a few miles from me and we spend quite a lot of time together. We made some agreements about our relationship when we made amends a year ago. I knew it wouldn’t last. In fact,, a couple of weeks ago she said some things that were very sweet. She said she was so happy to know me, that she loves me more than she ever has and is very proud of the person I have become. As any one of you knows, there is always some concealed bullsh*t/ veiled insult. In  this case, it would be that while sure I’ve learned lessons and grown as most people do, the truth is I’ve never deviated much from who I am. I mean, I’ve always been this same person. The truth is, I somehow managed to put it in a way to her this time around to give me a chance and find out who I am rather than tell me who I am and take all of the evil beliefs she has about me and let it go. This is part of it though, as you all know. I’m either her hero or her arch nemesis. There is no in between. Anyway, after a compliment like that, it could go south really fast!

My husband and I are going on vacation in two days. My sister was going to care for our cats while we were away but had fell and broke her wrist. I broke mine a couple of years ago and it hurts and a hindrance. So, we found an alternate cat sitter to take that burden away. I didn’t have a chance to tell her. She called me straight away this morning as I just woke up. Told me I was needed to come over today to color her roots on her hair (I previously said I would). So I said later, I just woke up and wasn’t feeling my best last night and needed to finish packing first….. she cut me off, was angry and hung up. Then the slew of texts. You know, I’m horrible, I’m the arch nemesis now. She sends me a laundry list of all the things she has done for me and tells me I do nothing for her. I’m self serving and only care about myself, blah blah blah. She insisted I had refused to help her, but that’s not what I said, she didn’t listen. She got mad, made her imagination a fact as usual, snd here we are. Each time I told her she was incorrect, she would text back “ you have zero self awareness. This is 100% on you.” And “hey get help! stop trying to turn this around on me. “ “zero responsibility, how sad to be you”, “call me when you’re ready to apologize” you guys all have heard these before I’m sure.

Here’s the thing though. When she initially told me she needed me to color her hair, I honestly did not have time to do it this week. BUT, in that split second on the phone I dared not say no. Why? Because I thought she would freak out and do exactly what she went on to do anyway. She broke all the agreements about our “new” relationship. But I screwed up too. I screwed up because even in those little, manipulative ways, I let her control me again. BPD’s are very sly with manipulating, you don’t see it coming. They keep score, but you are so manipulated, you forget they keep score! She is texting me EVERYTHING on the score card all day today! We are easy to manipulate because they have what we want. We want (at least me) a happy relationship with my sis! One that we love each other, can have fun and be friends, be your Ride or Die, want what’s  best for each other and feel joy for the others successes! That’s why I keep trying. But it’s all a lie. We may have glimpses of that, but it’s not lasting. I just have to remember to trust in myself. I have lots of love and life in other places. I can be thankful for the glimpses of joy I might experience from time to time with her, but remember that’s all I get. I gotta keep my guard up. I’m not a guarded person by nature, so that’s hard to do.

To close the story, my sister was very upset that I didn’t take it upon myself to still go over there today and color her hair for her. That’s the extreme dysfunction that exists. I live this everyday and yet it’s still mind blowing to me! I CANNOT imagine treating someone like that and then STILL expecting them to help you! I said to my husband, what if your best friend, Joe, called, he asks for a favor and you say I’m sorry buddy, I’m not able to. And then Joe texts you how awful you are that you only think about yourself and what about him? We started laughing because who does that! You wouldn’t be friends with a person if they treated you like that! So, why is it okay for my sister to? Answer: it’s not.

Tragically, my mother passed away 6 years ago. I love my mom so much. I miss her and think of her everyday. My mom put so much pressure on me to have a relationship with my sister. It was very hard for me because I could not stand to ever see my mom hurting. I would never say or even feel anything bad about my mom. I would give anything to have her back. But I was freed of this burden when my mom passed. Then, I decided I needed to try for myself. It just doesn’t work. For any of you feeling guilt or worse, bring guilted into a relationship by another family member, just remember it’s okay to say no.

Thanks for listening!

if you have tried to have a relationship with your sister but it is impossible..you can tell yourself you did your best with the resources you had in the situation...when things do not work...they never fail if you have tried...there is a reality..

 :hug:
Thanks for your post :) It sounds like you have good boundaries, but it's helpful to see how hard it is for us to say no sometimes. I'm 8 months NC with a uBPD mom, but I still can't say no to my sister on some of her flying monkey missions.

I can relate to your posts. With my BPD mom, I can do a million things nice for her, but one "no" and I am the worst child on the planet. She tends to push me to the point of saying "no" by constantly moving the boundaries.

I don't have any hope for what I would consider a relationship with her. She's severely BPD and sees me only through her projections. I am not NC with her,  she's elderly and a widow. I don't know what it would be like if she were younger. I am mostly just useful to her.

Soon, I will be planning a visit to see her. I haven't seen her in a long time due to Covid-19. I visit with considerable effort and expense- I don't stay with her because she's abusive, and having my own space is the best way for me to manage that.  I don't mind doing it. I am willing to take her out for meals and do nice things for her while I am there.

Why do I do this? Because I still feel it's what I should do. I have no expectations from her. I don't expect her to "let me be the good guy" here.  It's not how she is. However, for a sibling, who is younger and able to take care of themselves, I don't know if I would feel the same way or not.

I continue to marvel how pwBPD have not matured past the ego-centric view of the average 3 year old.  My mother is 85 and the world still revolves around her needs.  Case in point, your sister "tells you" to come over straight away to color the roots of her hair.  She doesn't ask if you are available.  She doesn't inquire first about how your trip preparations are going.  This is so frustrating for us, because it comes across as demanding, controlling, and selfish.  I believe the truth of the matter is that their brain isn't wired up to think about others.  They still have the ego-centric world view of a child.  The problem is that we expect them to be more adult and empathetic, and this is probably something they aren't physically capable of.  It is us asking and expecting the impossible,  thus the conflict.  I have struggled with this theme with my mother my whole life.  I learned that to save myself and navigate my relationship with her I needed to use boundaries (which are for my benefit), limit my exposures of her to a reasonable number, actually start to take care of myself instead of just taking care of other people (i.e. my mother), and let her make her own decisions and live with the consequences (and stop trying to protect her from herself, which is impossible and not my role).  

When she initially told me she needed me to color her hair, I honestly did not have time to do it this week. BUT, in that split second on the phone I dared not say no. Why? Because I thought she would freak out and do exactly what she went on to do anyway.  So, reflecting back, if you were to do it over again, what could you say to her that would both validate her feelings, but also communicate that you weren't available?

So, despite that she was incorrect, telling a person with BPD that they are incorrect is going to escalate the drama, which is what happened.  Despite it being true, we (the one without the disease) have to be the adult in the relationship, and not get drawn into the drama.  Instead of telling her she was incorrect (or explaining why she was wrong), could you try using SET?  This communication tool really works with pwBPD.

I really connected with this.  My mom used to keep a journal (when she could still write), but what she recorded as facts in her journal did not always match real facts.  We have been mowing her lawn for over 10 years.  It gets mowed every 1-2 weeks.  One September when she had a fall under her plum tree and broke a bone, she accused us of only mowing her lawn 2X that entire summer (because that is what was recorded in her journal).  Despite her "facts" being wrong, what she showed us was how unappreciative she was of all the work we did for her, and how she "kept score".  We had to look past our own hurt, and recognize that was her disease saying those things, not her.  Ironically, my mom herself has used the term "keeping score" in other contexts and situations, but she doesn't see the problem with it. It's her normal. We just ignore or "scores" now.  They only have meaning for her, not for us.

You're right that it's not ok for your sister to treat you like this, but the difference is that Joe doesn't have the disease your sister has.  You can't change your sister, so the trick is to let go of the expectations of her to be different, acknowledge the disease, and learn new strategies to navigate this challenging relationship, assuming you want to keep the relationship.  It sounds like the last year has been good, up until this recent episode.

Every time we left town, my mom's sense of abandonment was triggered.  Have you ever noticed this pattern with your sister, or do you think this could have been a one-off?  It is interesting that her emotions went haywire right before your trip, which happened to coincide with a fall and broken wrist.

Can you tell us more about this?